


Full of Grace

by starcunning



Series: Bite of the Black Wolf [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Breathplay, Choking, Colette de Dzemael, Elezen Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), F/M, FFXIV 2.0, Light Bondage, NSFW, Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, Religion Kink, twinsverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:21:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23234641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starcunning/pseuds/starcunning
Summary: “The prisoners are secured,” she said.“Good,” was his reply, but he glanced up from his work. Were it merely that, she would not have bothered to come herself. Neither would she linger. “And?” he prompted.“One of them gave her name as Odette.”Odettede Dzemael?Surely not. “I have no patience for liars. Take me to her.”
Relationships: Gaius van Baelsar/Warrior of Light
Series: Bite of the Black Wolf [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1670509
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Full of Grace

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seraphicrose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraphicrose/gifts).



> Originally posted to tumblr 13 May 2019.

Livia did not knock or announce herself. Gaius knew better than to expect her to amend her habits at this late stage, so it was not really a surprise when she breezed into the war room. Since she had adopted the white helm, she had made something of a mystery of her features, but her body language gave her away. She was trying—much too hard—to be casual.

“The prisoners are secured,” she said.

“Good,” was his reply, but he glanced up from his work. Were it merely that, she would not have bothered to come herself. Neither would she linger. “And?” he prompted.

“One of them gave her name as Odette.”

Odette _de Dzemael?_ Surely not. “I have no patience for liars. Take me to her.”

Gaius van Baelsar was not a coward; the use of magic did not discomfort him. Still, there had been something about his new ally that had not settled right upon the Black Wolf’s shoulders. It was only now, with the Scions of the Seventh Dawn secured in the gaol of the castrum, that he was beginning to trust that Lahabrea was capable of all he claimed. It had been little surprise to discover that the Scions’ personnel was comprised of the selfsame band that had opposed the Empire five years before. They had called themselves the Path of the Twelve then, or the Circle of Knowing. But the circle had been broken and the path cut short at Carteneau, where the Sharlayan sage Louisoix Leveilleur had attempted to spare the realm the devastation of Meteor, the great and posthumous sin brought down upon Eorzea by the White Raven. Nael van Darnus was dead. The moon had fallen. And Louisoix Leveilleur had disappeared.

So too had Odette de Dzemael.

He had occasioned to write to Lucia—by proxy, of course—and inquire after news in Ishgard. There was none to be found, and in fact Lucia had written to him in confusion: Odette de Dzemael, along with her twin, had left Ishgard two years before and had not been heard from again. That had unsettled Gaius more than any shadowless servant or his impossible promises. He had _known_ the Dzemael twins, in many senses of the word. Lucia goe Junius had written him a dossier about them when it had become apparent they were the only force capable of standing against the might of Garlemald.

He _remembered_ them. The boy—his boy—had taken up with them. They had not left Ishgard and evaporated; they had slain the White Raven and repelled the Seventh from the very doorstep of Ishgard. They had taken up arms against him; they had sat across the table from him. He had taken them to Carteneau. To their deaths. And the world had forgotten them.

It did not seem just.

Neither did it seem likely that Odette de Dzemael awaited him, no matter how many familiar faces he passed. That one had been Louisoix’s favored pupil. _That_ one had been suspected—though never formally accused—of being a Frumentarium agent. (He was not, of course, or Gaius would never have required Lahabrea to lead him to the Waking Sands.) The girl was no one, just a merchant with a head for numbers. The high priestess …

Lahabrea had told him that “Minfilia” was only an alias. That she had come from Ala Mhigo. Gaius had seen in his face how much he knew when the Ascian had told him about Warburton and his daughter. About the self-aggrandizing plot in Ul’dah that had robbed Eorzea of foreknowledge of Meteor. In the person of Ascilia Warde was embodied a particular legacy—one that would have dismantled his old foe; one that underscored how ill-suited to self-governance the so-called Alliance really was.

There was indeed a fifth cell, and Gaius paused before it. He could hear himself breathing within his helmet, staring into the dim. Odette de Dzemael did not look back at him.

But he would have forgiven anyone for making the mistake—after all, they were identical twins. She looked exactly the same as he recalled. Exactly the same, as though the intervening years had not gone by. He could not help but gape. With her white hair and pale skin, she looked like a ghost, and he would not have been at all surprised to discover that was the case.

“Colette,” he said.

She turned to look at him, and he saw the livid line where her lip had been split. His tongue traced the spot on the inner rim of his own mouth absently, and he decided this was evidence enough that she was real. She said nothing, only looked at him. There was a hardness in her gaze that was new.

He turned to a sentry, gesturing him forward. “Open this cell.”

There was no answer for a long moment, the centurion frozen in surprise. Still, the lad must have possessed _some_ wisdom, since rather than lift his voice in questioning he began flicking through the cermet keys he held.

“This is Colette de Dzemael,” he said. “Not a prisoner, but an honored guest. Treat her as such.”

She deigned to speak then. “Lord van Baelsar,” she addressed him, though her tone was supremely diffident. “How can I _ever_ repay your graciousness.”

He ignored her sarcasm. “Dine with me,” he said. “Tomorrow. At Castrum Meridianum.”

He heard the sound of the key in the lock, the warning chime as systems disengaged. Before he could compromise himself further, he turned to depart.

* * *

Castrum Meridianum was not so far from its counterpart, Centri, but it was the former that Gaius had chosen as his main base of operations. It was also the larger of the pair, and overall it was better suited for receiving guests.

Not that any of that seemed to matter to Colette. She had come to dinner with the dust of the road and the damp of the gaol still clinging to her, though his instructions had been explicit. She had been offered every comfort and refused them, but still she had come to his dinner table to drink his wine.

It was a calculated insult, of the sort only one blueblood could proffer another. His only recourse was to pretend to take no notice of the disparity: she, unwashed and sallow beneath the hood of her linen robe, her split lip still yet to heal; he, pressed and starched in his ostentatious panoply.

She could at least have healed the cut herself.

Her refusal to do so only drew his gaze back to her lips. He tore his attention away, occupying himself instead with refreshing her glass. “I am told,” he said as he poured, “your twin was absent from the Rising Stones because she was occupied with keeping the peace in La Noscea.”

Colette pursed her lips, and Gaius found himself looking at her mouth again. “So you don’t have her.”

“If I did, she would be sitting at this table as well,” Gaius said. “We have always been honest with one another in the past, have we not.”

Colette made a noncommital noise and lifted her wine glass, taking a sip from it. “I suppose,” she said.

It was a canny enough move, he supposed. She was in no mood to reveal anything he might not already know, it seemed. He had no such advantage where this matter was concerned—but that also meant he lost nothing by his frankness. “Well, I have heard nothing from the Second Cohort about a primal on the rampage, so I presume your twin completed her bloody-minded mission. What was it that prompted this particular summoning of the Lord of Crags?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Colette said sweetly. “But I’m sure you do. And I’m just as sure you long to tell me, so why don’t we just get to the point.”

He demurred long enough to refill his own glass and take a sip. There were few enough bottles of Valens left in the world, and he had brought one to this table. It had been meant as a gesture of his seriousness in the matter and met—as had so much else—with diffidence. But she was looking at him expectantly, and so he set the glass aside.

“Your twin was called to La Noscea because the thalassocracy was weak enough to need to make treaty with the beast tribes there, and then too weak also to abide by their own deal.”

“I hardly think you give a fig about the mineral rights of the kobolds,” Colette noted, leaning in to prop her chin up on a hand.

“I would never have made the treaty in the first place,” Gaius said. “I would have collected the tributum due me and that would be the end of it.”

“ _Really,_ ” Colette said.

“We have our own metallurgists in Gyr Abania,” he retorted. “They make focusing lenses and other delicate machinery. They have the same rights—and the same responsibilities—as other _aan._ ”

“I thought the official policy of the Empire was complete extermination of the beast tribes to prevent the summoning of eikons?” Her tone was syrupy, her expression doe-eyed.

He didn’t believe it for a minute. “His Radiance is correct to be concerned about the summoning of eikons,” Gaius said. “Until very recently, attrition was the only effective means of making war on their kind, and the legions were instructed to preempt the eventuality by force.”

“Has that policy changed?” Colette asked blithely, toying with her wine glass.

“Not yet.” He sipped at his own wine. “The fact that it has not would bode very ill for Eorzea indeed, were I minded to hew to it.”

“Oh?” she asked, her head tilting a little.

He thought of her—her and her sister both, standing in an alpine meadow. She had looked very much the same then as she did sitting across the table from him; even her garb had been similar: the cloak and hood of a traveling pilgrim. His recall of the sight of them bent in prayer was perfect, as real as the woman before him.

“You were not merely offering the people of Eorzea a distraction,” he said softly. “Your pilgrimage had another purpose, which you kept from me. Was it kept from you in the same way?” he asked.

Colette did not answer, only stared at him, transfixed.

“At Carteneau, you summoned your gods. Do you think they answered you, truly? Do you think they are any more real than are the gods of beastmen? The whole of the realm was complicit in that summoning—a summoning that, in the end, could not even save you. By imperial edict we should put every last Eorzean to the sword. Van Darnus would, if she yet lived.”

“And you would be the preferable tyrant?” Colette asked, her eyes not quite meeting his.

“I would have the strength to rule this realm, to put an end to the petty squabbling that drives beast tribes to summon. Eorzea’s leaders are weak; they have always relied on borrowed strength too much. You could say the word, here, now, and at your direction they would surrender.”

Colette sipped at her wine, drained her glass, set it aside. “No,” she said.

“No?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, did you think the answer had changed?”

He snorted, indignant. “Yes. Where have you been these last five years?” he asked. “Without you the realm fell to shambles. Had you not returned it would not have stood against me. As you go, so too Eorzea.”

She only stared at him a long moment. “So then what, do you intend to keep me here? To capture my sister?”

“No,” he said. “I expect you to bring news of this meeting back to the Alliance. I have an ultimatum to offer them, and the strength to enforce it. You will deliver my terms.”

“And if I refuse?” Colette asked.

“You are free to do as you like,” Gaius said, “but a lack of response from the Alliance will be treated as a refusal to cooperate.”

“I’ll leave in the morning,” she said. “I want an escort into the Bluefog fields, and a cohort from the Alliance waiting to receive me.”

“I’ll send word.”

“And I want my personal effects returned,” she said.

He rose, straightening his shirt, and she watched him go.

“What are you doing?”

“All you have asked,” he said. Turning his face away, he felt the smile tug at the corner of his mouth. He smothered it, stepping out to relay his orders.

“How is tol Scorpius, in any case,” Colette wondered idly, running a finger along the rim of her empty glass.

“Enjoying Corvos, I believe,” Gaius replied. “He was transferred shortly after Carteneau.” He paused to reflect a moment longer. “You never intended to say yes,” he said. “Not then and certainly not now.”

“Of course not,” she replied.

“You were listening so intently.”

“You have no idea of your own effect, do you?” she laughed.

That left him standing stricken until the knock came upon the door, and a moment later he had a rucksack in his hands. He crossed back to the table, setting it down on the surface. It sat oddly there—worn leather and dull metal atop polished, dark wood, as out of place in this room as Colette herself. “Here,” he said.

She dove into it like a starving beast, scattering her things across the table with abandon. Most of it she tossed aside carelessly, sparing a thought only for her deck of cards. Whatever she was looking for she was distressed not to find, picking through the cruft of her life as though she might have missed it.

He took up the abandoned pack, unbuckling a few of its side pouches. There was a compass and map, a few candle stubs, a bedroll lashed to the bottom of the rucksack. Gaius undid the buckle holding it in place, and as it unfurled a little he could feel something shift and tumble out. He caught it by reflex.

It dangled from his fingers, caught through a loop of silvery chain. A necklace, perhaps, spaced evenly with groups of blue stone beads and silver stars. A descender chain held a medallion graven with the symbol of Halone, and into the central spear was set a bright blue crystal. Not a necklace, then. A rosary.

She was gaping at him as he examined it, reaching out as though to tug it from his grasp. Colette seemed to think better of it—the chain was so very delicate—but she twined her fingers through it anyway.

“So you still believe in the mercies of your Fury,” he said.

“As much as I believe in anything these days,” Colette murmured. She was not looking at him any longer, only at the pendant crystal. “It’s no use continuing to argue the point with me,” she added a moment later. “You’ve been reminded where my sister and I stand on the matter of Imperial conquest.”

He let go of the rosary. She clutched it to her chest. “Then what,” he said.

“Perhaps we could move on to the tried-and-true form of diplomacy between us. There _is_ a disparity to correct, after all.”

He wanted to laugh. Instead he smothered the impulse, merely looking at her. She really did look the same as she did in his memories, he could not help but note. “How opportunistic the pair of you are,” he said. “I don’t know whether to applaud your initiative or mourn your folly.” Still, he could not help but admit he felt better equipped to handle one twin than both.

“Well, they say one recognizes their own qualities in others,” she said, tone breezy and nonchalant. She looked up from the rosary clutched in her hands, leaning in to regard him more closely. When she spoke again her tone was lower: “Besides, how long has it been, Legatus?” she asked.

He turned his face away a moment, trying to look anywhere but at her lips, and was surprised to feel himself smiling. He tried to smother it and failed, and so he took the only recourse left to him.

He leaned in and kissed her instead. From the muffled sound she made, it took her by surprise, but she was quick to wind her arms around his neck. Her lips were searing, too hot almost, as though the wound there had drawn her blood to the fore. He could taste her, blood and wine, as her mouth opened for him. She laughed, the sound half-muffled against him. He drew back to regard her, and she smiled, the tip of her tongue darting out to run over the split in her lip.

“A while, then,” she said.

“I’m not going to answer that,” Gaius growled, tilting his head as he leaned in. Before she could needle him further, he laved his tongue over the side of her neck. It made her gasp, muscles tensing, pulse quickening. He could smell the dust of the road on her robes, but under that—close to her skin, clinging to her hair—there was the scent of roses, velvety soft, vibrant red. Like that split on her lip. Thinking of it, he lifted his head to catch it between his teeth, tracing the shape of that vibrant wound. She shuddered against him, drawing back. He let her go, but her hands merely slid along the lapels of his jacket, grasping at him, pulling him back for another kiss even as she fumbled blindly with the buttons. “Not here,” he said, pulling back, taking her hands in his own to pry them free of his jacket. The beads of her rosary clattered softly against one another as he lifted her hands.

“Don’t tell me you’re going soft in your old age?” she asked, arching a brow.

He barked out a laugh, letting go of one hand to swat at her ass. She gasped in surprise, then lapsed into laughter, reaching out an arm to drape it over his shoulders. “Not likely,” he said.

“Well then,” Colette said, “take me to your preferred theatre.”

Castrum Meridianum was not as compact as the _Aurelia_ had been, but the tradeoff for longer hallways between the various parts of his suite of rooms were fewer stairs. Not that such a thing troubled him—or would for many years yet, he suspected. But Meridianum was his residence only so long as the campaign lasted, at which point he would surrender it to Livia and return to Ala Mhigo, so he had done little to personalize the space. Colette seemed to find this more fascinating still than she had his cabin aboard the airship, running her fingers over the track lighting at waist height that tinged her skin a shade of brilliant blue. After her momentary fascination with the décor, her attention returned to him.

His hair was not long enough on the sides to run her fingers through, and yet as she curled a hand around him, her thumb brushed from his temple backward over the close-cropped bristles of hair there. He had been greying when first they met, but the leeching of color there had only broadened. He refused to feel self-conscious about his aging, even in the face of her continued youthfulness. Then she leaned in to kiss him again, a day’s growth of beard rasping against her lips, and when she made to strip his dinner jacket from him, he let her.

She cast it aside thoughtlessly, her lips grazing the corner of his mouth, and she gathered his shirt in turn, bunching the fabric in her hands at the small of his back. When it came untucked, she slipped her palms beneath the fabric—beneath his undershirt, too, so that those perfectly manicured nails trailed over his skin. He could feel the cool beads of her rosary against his back, wound about her wrist and trailing behind her touch. Her nails traced along his spine, forward around the curve of his ribs, down over his stomach, and then she slipped her hands free to begin unbuttoning his shirt. With a tug he unraveled the knot of his tie and removed his cuff links, setting them aside on a nearby desk. The sound made him pause and consider, with amusement, how different they appeared. He had worn his finest—even those cuff links had been a gift from Cornelia kir Octavius on the occasion of the legion’s founding—and she had come dressed in rags. It seemed so unlike her that he wanted to laugh. In the end, he supposed, it mattered little enough. They would both be reduced to the same state sooner or later.

He reached for her, unclasping the brooch at her throat—a simple thing of hammered steel. Before he could go much further, she swatted his hands away so that she could peel his shirt from him, down over his arms to lie in a heap on the floor. He ducked out of his undershirt a moment later, and she traced the winding path of an old scar over his ribs. Then she turned away, lifting her hands to the nape of her neck to tug at the ties there. Gaius reached up to take hold of the laces that held closed her robe, and she curled her fingers around the loose bun that hung at the base of her skull, lifting it to keep it out of the way as he worked. The pendant of the rosary dangled down, swaying like a pendulum a moment. The crystal set into the medallion at the end seemed almost luminous—a trick of the light, perhaps, but he allowed it to distract him no more as he worked to loose the laces of her robe.

As he did he reflected—this was the sort of task that was difficult to do alone. He had been told one of the servants of the house had absconded along with the twins, but Gaius suspected it was not Rempart Myste that laced her into her robes each morning. That seemed more likely to be Odette’s doing, though he had to admit he had seen little enough of the pair. The material began to sag, and she let go of her bun to begin to slide it down over her shoulders.

There was a tattoo on her back, where he was quite certain there had not been before. He traced the shape of it with his finger—the radiating spokes, the central flourish, the deep v at the bottom that pointed along the column of her spine. It looked like an explosion, perhaps; an impact, a—

“Where did you go all these years?” he asked softly.

“Nowhere,” she replied, tugging her arms free of the sleeves of her robe, gathering it about her waist and shimmying it down over her legs to step out of it. Her undergarments were rather plain, her garter belt made of unremarkable tan cotton, and yet he could not help the impulse to run his fingers along the slope of her shoulders.

“Nowhere,” he echoed, his thumb catching the strap of her brassiere and sliding it down over the curve of her shoulder, so that it fell against her bicep. She slipped her arm free, folding it about herself to cup one breast. He repeated the motion on the other side, and then went to work on the hook-and-eye closures at her back.

“What does Frumentarium say?” she wondered, shuddering a little as the closure of her bra sprang open. She tossed it aside, but did not turn back toward him.

“Nothing,” he said. His gaze lingered on that tattoo, so stark against her pale flesh, so unlike anything he could imagine her choosing for herself. He lifted his hands to her hair, unraveling the bun that kept it up so that it spilled down in a curtain of white. He ran his nails along her scalp to hear her groan. “After Carteneau, nothing. For years. I thought you were dead.”

“I’m not convinced otherwise,” she said, and she did turn back toward him then, tossing her hair. It cascaded over her bare shoulders, brushed the curve of her breasts.

He took her face in his hands, cradling her cheeks, lifting her chin, and kissed her once more, lingering and slow. He could hear her breathing catch, feel it feather over his cheek as she sighed. She whimpered a little as he grazed the split in her lips, and he drew back. “You seem alive to me,” he concluded.

“Perhaps I am simply a very convincing ghost,” she murmured, stroking her fingers over his chest, running her fingers backward through the sparse hair there. The rosary swung from her wrist. “You are the first person to know who I am—aside from my sister, of course.”

“The Archon’s disciples, captured alongside you …”

“Do not recall our previous meeting,” she said. She was looking intently at her hand laid against his skin, the contrast between their skin tones. “We fought for this realm, bled for them, and they greeted us as strangers once more when we returned to the fold. Thancred had no inkling of our capabilities; he thought for certain we would perish in Ifrit’s flames, never realizing we had vanquished that primal before.”

Gaius wondered for a moment if Lahabrea was as ignorant as his host. It was either that or he had chosen not to disclose the identity of his foes, and Gaius misliked both options. Rather than dwell on it, he reached down to curl his fingers around Colette’s fingers, lifting her hand from his skin. He nipped at the inside of her wrist, nudging the beads of her rosary aside with his nose.

“I know you,” he said. “Perhaps better than anyone.”

She laughed, drawing her hand back from his, reaching for his belt. “It will not win me to your cause,” she cautioned. “Besides, I know you too—if not best in all the world, enough to ruin you.”

Well. There was an unnerving grain of truth in that, such that he could only gape as she unbuttoned his fly. He recovered a moment later, long enough to pry his shoes off and kick them aside. Colette’s nails rasped over his flank, down the outside of his thighs, pushing his trousers and underpants down with the backs of her palms. He stepped out of them and settled his hands at her waist. She looked up at him with an impudent smile, her hands skimming up his arms to settle at his shoulders. He could feel the stone beads of her rosary—they had grown warmer with the contact from her skin, but the pendant was cool, the final medallion almost chilly, and he could not help the goosebumps that rose upon his flesh.

He picked her up and set her on the edge of the desk so that he could unhook her garters from her stockings, trailing a finger along the scalloped lace edge, enjoying the interplay between silk and skin. He rolled them down, despite her whine of protest, but he only grinned at her, and she must have caught some glint in his eye because her expression slid toward anticipation a moment later. He wrapped his arms around her, fumbling blindly with the garter belt. Her bare chest was warm against his own, her legs wrapping about his waist. He could feel the softness of her thighs and wanted desperately in that moment to pull her panties aside, to enter her and sink into her warmth. He wanted that, and in doing that he wanted to reclaim something he thought Meteor had taken from him—the last thing he had lost.

But he shook the impulse from himself. Instead he draped her stockings over one palm and slid his hands along her back, over the curve of her ass. He felt her thighs tighten, her fingers press against his shoulders, and she lifted herself enough for him to slip his hands beneath her, lifting her from the desk once more. She clung to him and he carried her to the bed—not quite so grand as the one aboard the _Aurelia,_ but perfectly suitable for his purposes. He sat on the edge with her in his lap, and she lifted and braced herself as he swung his legs up. He reclined, looking up at her, and she let her hands trail over his chest.

Gaius took hold of her arm with one hand. With the other he brushed the pale blue beads of her rosary, slipping them down over her hand. She caught at the tangle of chain with her long, pale fingers.

“Don’t,” she said.

“I have no intention of robbing you,” he said, letting go of the loop.

“Then what,” she wondered.

“I would pit your devotion to your goddess against the reason and exactitude of Garlemald,” he said, feeling the beginnings of a smile tug at his lips. “The ice of the Fury against the heat of passion. If your gods exist, they play games with mortals. We should return the favor.”

She laughed—a hearty laugh that shook the whole of her body. It was a delightful sight, as was the way she tossed her hair after. Then she held her arm out, letting the loops of her makeshift bracelet unravel til the rosary dangled from her fingertips. He took her other wrist, and she brought her hands in, pressing them together in prayer. Then Gaius took up one of her stockings, winding the silk about her wrists, binding them loosely together and tying them off with a hasty knot. He sat up then, shifting his weight to tuck his legs under himself. Her full weight rested against his thighs, his erection caught between the hardness of his stomach and the softness of hers.

He lifted the rosary where it dangled from her hands, holding the medallion in his hand. It was cold to touch, the crystal luminous in the low light of the room. He could feel her gaze upon him, the slight tension in her spine as he looked it over, and so he let it fall, swinging pendulous beneath her hands. Then he took hold of her elbows and lifted her arms, settling them about his shoulders so her hands were behind his back.

“When you drop that, this ends,” he said.

“If I drop it,” she replied.

“When,” he grinned.

He heard the soft clatter of beads very close to his ear, behind him, felt the stone spheres brush against the broad muscles of his back. The old Elezen tongue had some things in common with the Allagan from which it had been derived, but not quite enough for Gaius to understand. Her tone was plain, however—the hushed reverence of a prayer one recites by rote, her eyes closing. For a long moment he simply looked up at her serene face, and at the spill of her white hair. It seemed like cheating to smother her mouth with his own, so he kissed the corner of it instead, and tipped his head to rasp his teeth against the side of her neck. He felt her swallow, throat bobbing against his tongue, but she continued her chant a moment later.

Colette had a lovely voice, and he understood now the accent that lilted through her Eorzean speech—some Ishgardian quirk, no doubt. He laid his temple against her shoulder, nipping at her neck and breathing in the lingering traces of her perfume. It clung to her skin and hair, making him feel as though he drowsed in a rose garden. But the weight of her was more immediate, as was the way she shivered when his breath skated over his damp skin. If that was her reaction already, she was in trouble.

He did not so much lift his head as turn it, lipping over her collarbone, listening to the sound of her breathing, the soft clatter of beads as she began to turn the rosary in her bound hands.

“The first,” she said—the first _something,_ he didn’t know quite enough to guess. His hands slid from her hips up her sides and over the curve of her stomach, pulling their bodies apart a bit until the heels of her hands rested at the nape of his neck. He cupped her breasts, one in each hand, looking upon them a long moment. They really were gorgeous, he had to admit, stretching the thumb of his right hand so that he could rasp the joint over her nipple, just begun to pucker. Her skin was soft and his hands were not—they were a soldier’s hands, marred by warcraft. A thousand tiny cuts had rent the dark skin, flecks of powder from his gunblade embedded into the dermis and healed over. Not at all like her, pale and supple and soft. He traced the halo of her areola with the pad of his thumb, watching her flesh rise in response, a quaver wracking through her voice. She trailed off, her eyes open, looking down at him in anticipation.

“I think you may have to start that one over,” he told her.

“Bastard,” she laughed.

“You don’t even remember what you were doing,” Gaius replied.

She drew up her shoulders with the next breath she took and huffed out a sigh. It feathered through his hair. “Fine,” she said.

She repeated the first line of the prayer, slowly, deliberately, watching him, and he only looked at her. While he could never conjure innocence upon his features, he smiled benignly, toying with the ends of her hair. She relaxed slowly, her weight settling atop his thighs, her head bowing, and only then did he lean in to kiss her.

His lips pressed to her sternum, tongue laving over the skin there, the valley just between those perfect breasts, and he felt her squirm. He smiled; he could feel his lips stretch, knowing the gesture perfectly hidden by the way he pressed his mouth to her body. He was in no hurry, really, kissing along her skin, letting his tongue trail languidly over her. He could taste the faintest trace of salt, could smell the particular scent of her skin. This close he thought he could hear her heart beating too, could hear it quicken to racing with each of his kisses, reminding him that she was alive. Despite everything, Colette de Dzemael was alive, praying a rosary in his lap. Even the Eorzeans’ Spinner would have been hard-pressed to foresee this turning of events.

Much more an inevitability was the way he was drawn to her breasts, lifting one so that he could kiss at its curve. His stubble rasped against her skin, and he heard her voice wobble, the clattering of beads as she strained to keep hold of the rosary even as she turned it.

“The second—” whatever it was—it was of no real concern to Gaius. His tongue, wide and flat, traced the shape of her nipple, and she seemed to lose her train of thought a long moment. She announced the second _whatever_ again before moving on to her first prayer.

Gaius smothered his impulse to laugh by pressing his face against her flesh instead, letting his teeth rake the soft flesh. His breath skated over her damp skin, and he heard her pause, the beads rattling in her hands as she turned them, but kept hold.

His hands slid over her body once more, tracing the arch of her back to rest at her hips, pulling her inward and down against him. Her body was warm and soft where it pressed to his, her unbound hair spilling about her shoulders, a few strands brushing at his cheeks. He kissed and bit at her chest teasingly for a long few moments, listening to the way she fumbled through her prayers, but when he leaned down to take a nipple into his mouth, Colette let out a low whine. Her fingers knotted in his hair, the silk stocking pressed against the back of his neck, cool stone threaded between her fingers. She held him there against her a long moment.

He waited for her to relent and resume her prayers before he swirled his tongue over her nipple, sucking it gently into his mouth. Her whimpering interrupted her prayers, and when he looked up at her bowed head he could see the flush upon her cheeks.

Still she moved on to the third _thing,_ whatever it was the sets of beads entailed. He relented for just a moment, turning his head to kiss and suck at the skin between her breasts, teeth raking her skin and reeling a whine from those plush lips. He slid a hand down over her thigh and back up, hooking his thumb underneath her panties. With a twist of his fingers he drew the material taut against her and she groaned, rocking in his lap. It didn’t avail her much, but for a moment she pressed against the base of his cock, and he could feel the heat and wetness that pervaded. It made him ache, but he would not abandon this so soon.

Neither did he suspect he was alone in his need. Gaius sucked at her other nipple, listening to her gasp and feeling it draw taut in his mouth, then pulled away to blow a steady stream of air over her skin. She arched against him once more. That thread of need ran through her voice all the time now, high and breathy, her head bowed to mumble her prayers through his dark hair.

Gaius slid his thumb along the inside hem of her panties, tracing the curve of her thigh. He could feel the damp thatch of hair that crowned her mound. She lifted herself obligingly as he reached between their bodies. His teeth rasped over her breast as she pulled away, and he turned his hand so that the thumb caught in the fabric of her underwear pulled them aside. His first two fingers stroked her vulva, and she pressed down against his hand, huffing out a needy little sound. She didn’t even try to pray as she teased her slit against his fingers, and he could feel the tension in her arms.

Her panties drawn aside and her cunt exposed, Gaius pulled his hand away and guided her back down into his lap. It would have been easy—so _easy—_ to take hold of himself and pull her onto him, to bury himself in her then and there, but denial of the easy thing was not a tool he could deploy only against her. Still, he had to grit his teeth as she ground herself against the base of his cock, smearing him with her honey.

On to the fourth, then, though her prayers were growing breathless.

“All you have to do is let it fall,” he reminded her.

“I won’t,” she said, though she sounded anything but resolute. “I won’t.”

Gaius shrugged his shoulders, parting her with the pad of his thumb so that he could stroke her clit. She was stumbling through her prayers by then—repeating the same line over and over as though she might find focus there. As though she might find reprieve. She would not, but he backed off just a little, allowing his lips to ghost over her skin, his hand going still. She lifted her hips, grinding against him to coax just a little bit more stimulation, but he drew away.

Colette whimpered in frustration, and he smothered his laughter against the side of her neck. His other arm looped around her waist, holding her to him.

She whined her way through the last lines of her prayer, and his name spilled haphazardly over her lips. “Gaius, Gaius, I’m so close.”

“I know,” he said, slipping his hand between them to bracket her clit between two fingers. She whimpered at the indirect contact, frotting herself against him in desperation, but it wasn’t quite enough. He was not prepared to let it be enough. Gaius bowed his head, teeth scraping against her skin. “Just drop it. This only ends when you drop it.”

“To the seventh hell with you, then,” she spat, and went back to reciting her prayers.

He bit her, as might his namesake, though the marks they left were not at all the same; Gaius sucked on her skin, laving his tongue over the flesh even as he forced blood to the surface, leaving livid little marks behind, ringed with the impression of his teeth.

Around the time of the fifth group, Gaius’s arm about her waist tightened, pressing their bodies together. He bit back a groan at the warmth and softness of her, and she shifted instinctually as he lifted himself from the bed a bit, rising up onto his knees. Her legs wrapped around his waist, and he had to call upon his iron discipline to master his instincts as he spilled her to her back. Her unbound hair fell in disarray around her, framing a face that was flushed and wanton, her tongue darting out to wet her lips, running along the split just in the middle there. If he kissed her he would taste blood and salt, he knew, but he would not interrupt her prayer by such means.

Though it pained him to do so, he took hold of each of her ankles and unwrapped her legs from around him so that he could touch her more readily, his fingers skimming over her vulva, opening her, plunging into her. Her words became a sharp cry, her back arching to press herself onto his fingers, and he went still until she spoke again. He could no better understand the words than he could when she began, but they were becoming familiar; the structure of the prayers had revealed themselves through repetition, and he knew they were drawing on toward their end.

He could not draw back from her—not and remain in her arms, where he had bound them—but he looked upon her as best he could anyway. It really was uncanny, how like his memories she was; how little time had changed her while it remade the world around them. While he remade the world around them—while time remade him, too. How could they not know her? She was just the same. If Eorzea was not grateful for her service—by which the realm had been spared—it might at the very least have remembered her loveliness.

She moaned, turning her face away as though his gaze had grown too intense, and Gaius slipped back into the moment with a smile. The beads rattled behind him, no longer so cool where they fell against his back.

“Last one,” Colette said with a tone of triumph. “It seems I still have hold of it.”

But he was the Black Wolf, and he would not be so easily outmaneuvered. “I see,” he said. “Do you want me to fuck you, Colette?”

She opened her eyes to regard him, almost affronted by the question. Her expression softened only slightly after a moment, as though the sight of him was so welcome she could not hold onto her anger. She nodded, looking almost abashed of such an overt admission. “Yes,” she said.

“Then drop it,” Gaius instructed.

There was a clatter of beads and a sudden chill as the medallion fell just beneath the nape of his neck. As Gaius reached out to run a hand along her side, the muscles of his back shifted and the rosary tumbled to the bed beside them. He laughed, smothering the sound against her neck, and slipped out of her arms, running a hand over her stomach. His fingers caught in the waistband of her panties, and she begrudgingly shifted, lifting herself from the bed so that he could pull them down.

He left her hands bound, grasping the knot between her wrists and pinning her arms above her head with one hand. The other swept back up her leg, caressing her thigh and petting at the soft, damp curls that crowned her vulva. His fingers brushed her clit, stroking around it in a loose circle that made her whimper. He ran his fingertip along her labia, smearing her honey over her before he pressed into her, letting the pad of his thumb brush against her clit. She gasped, her violet eyes wide, fixed upon him. He only grinned back at her, stroking her, watching the rise and fall of her chest with her shallow breaths.

She whimpered, letting her head loll to one side, her eyes closing, and she kissed the inside of his arm, lipping over his skin in a prelude to the gentle lovebites that followed. “Gaius,” she whined. Close as she had been before, she could not long endure. He bowed himself over her to suck her nipple into his mouth once more, and felt her clench around his fingers. It wrung another moan from her, and she brought her thighs together, trapping his hand against her as she writhed and arched against him, determined to wring her climax for as long as she might. Her little cries spilled over his damp skin, feeling cool despite the heat of her breath, receding like the lapping of waves until she lay still. Gaius reclined beside her then, laying on his side to face her.

He brought his fingers to her lips, and she opened them, sucking greedily. She looked over at him, studying his face as though hunting for something, but if she found it she said nothing. When he pulled his hand free, he brought it to her cheek, pulling her in for another kiss. She tasted of blood and salt, as he knew she would, but he could taste her honey upon her tongue, too, and groaned. She slipped her hands free of his grasp to loop her arms around him once more.

“I thought you had promised to fuck me?” she asked, her lips quirking upward in amusement.

“That hasn’t changed,” he growled. He wrapped an arm about Colette’s waist and rolled to his back, pulling her into place atop him.

She laughed, shifting her weight and folding her legs so that she could straddle his hips. She rolled her hips, grinding along the length of his cock and smearing him with her wetness. “Hmm,” she said. “I think in this position, I might be—”

“No,” he said. “You can think that and be wrong, if you like.”

“We’ll see,” she replied, lips curving in amusement. She struggled to push herself upright, lifting herself, but her bound hands made it difficult to reach between their bodies and take hold of him.

He watched her struggle a long moment, then reached out and untied the knot with a single firm tug. She inclined her head in a genteel nod, lifting a hand immediately to sweep back her hair. It spilled around her shoulders and over her breasts again a moment later, but she had moved on to other things by then, leaning forward so that she could reach behind herself and grasp the base of his shaft.

She didn’t bother teasing him—perhaps she simply didn’t have the patience. Instead she buried the head of him in her, and he groaned at the feeling. He had felt her wetness already, but to feel it with his fingers was one thing; to have her heat smothering his cock was quite another. She took him, her hands settling on her thighs as she sat back. Her weight settled against him and she sighed, feeling him inside her, eyelashes fluttering a moment. He lifted his hips, jostling himself inside her, that sigh blossoming into a moan.

When she began to move, it was slowly at first, her hands stroking over her own thighs. Her breasts bounced as she rode, and he could see the pale shadows of bruises where he had bitten her. She leaned backward, bracing herself against his thighs, and he lifted a hand to stroke his fingers over her stomach. Her expression was faintly amused, her fingers brushing over his as she brought her hands up over her body, lifting and squeezing at her breasts.

His hand settled at the slope of her hip, bracing himself against her as he arched and lifted his hips, meeting her downward strokes with his own upward thrust. He bottomed out and she gasped, letting her head fall back. Gaius reached up to fondle her breast, pinching her nipple lightly between the sides of his fingers. She grasped his wrist, pulling his hand in against her chest as he continued to ride, and then pulled it further upward still.

Colette leaned over him, bracing with one hand against the bed. The other pulled his fingers to her mouth. He traced the shape of her lips before she wrapped them around his fingertips, muting her little moans with his flesh, tongue laving over him as though desperate for the taste of his skin. Her grasp on his wrist abated after a moment, her fingers skimming over his forearm, and as she leaned back his fingers traced the shape of her chin and grazed the sides of her neck.

She grasped his wrist and brought her other hand up, her fingers twining with his. Her skin was so soft, and he was so transfixed by it that he did not notice her stillness at first.

“Gaius,” she said, her fingers pressing at his. “I want you to choke me.”

“That is not a thing to decide on a whim,” he told her. He moved to pull his hand away, but her fingers were still locked tightly about his wrist, and her other hand held his palm against her throat.

“I know,” she said, lifting her chin to shake back her hair. The snow-white strands brushed at the backs of his fingers. “But I trust you,” she added, the words quiet but not breathless.

What a reckless thing to do, and still more reckless to admit it. He brought his free hand to his brow, careful of his third eye as the others shut. Even without looking up at her he was not free of her; he could feel her all too readily, her fingers upon his skin, her heat stretched all around him. He could smell roses on the air, commingled with the rest. She trusted him—was that not the very thing he had asked of her; to capitulate to her passions? To do as he bid?

He had let himself be outmaneuvered by the _eikon_ -slayer yet again, hadn’t he.

Gaius nodded, his eyes opening just in time to see the smile blossom upon her face. It was not mere triumph that rose there, but true delight and anticipation. No longer feeling so compelled to hold his hand in place, she let her hand slip down over his arm, raking her nails lightly over his chest, through the hair there. The other skimmed down over her body, caressing her breast and stomach, and she lifted herself, leaning forward.

Her hair spilled down over her shoulders with the new angle, and he could grasp her throat easily, could feel her racing pulse fluttering beneath his thumb. He set his other hand at her hip, meeting her movements with his own thrusts once more. Gaius looked up at her, his attention fixed upon her face, and then he tightened his grasp.

It was not obvious at first when she stopped breathing, but he watched the color of her cheeks, the way her lips gaped. Her hand found his wrist once more—to brace him, perhaps, but when she stopped grasping at his arm he let go of her neck in turn.

Breath flooded into her once more with a great gasp, and when it left her again it was in a long, low moan that made his blood surge. Her eyelids fluttered and she whimpered his name.

“Yes,” she groaned. Then she panted, “Again,” and her nails bit into his wrist. He obliged her, his fingers sinking into the column of her neck, so slender and pale. Before he cut her off completely, she gasped one last shallow lungful of air and smiled. With his grip on her neck he pulled her head down, straining upward to steal a kiss from those breathless lips. Her hair spilled over her shoulder, soft as silk against his skin, and he was transfixed for a moment by the absence of the sensations he expected—no panting breath to rush over his skin, no little mewling sounds to escape her lips.

She let go of his arm after a long moment, and he relinquished his grasp to curve his hand about the nape of her neck instead. Held against him, he could feel the way her body shuddered against his, lungs filling with air, eyes squeezed shut. He felt her clench around him. Colette grasped his shoulders, her nails raking his skin, and she whimpered his name, and that was all the warning she gave, carried away by the rush of blood to her head. He groaned, feeling her squeeze at him, buried as deep in her needy cunt as he could get, a pleasure so sharp he set his teeth against it. He stroked her back as she arched, brushing her hair aside, and she let her brow fall against his. He tipped his chin to protect his eye, and stole a kiss from her, feeling her panting breath feather over his chin and throat.

Colette looked down at him with curiosity, rolling her hips against him, and he groaned. She seemed on the verge of laughing at his plight, but he bent his knees, bracing himself so that he could grind against her, his arms about her waist keeping them together. An aftershock shuddered through her, and she squeezed at him once more.

“Please, Gaius,” she murmured against his mouth.

That was more than enough; he wound his arms around her, pulling her down against him to sheathe himself fully in her heat, the knot in his groin unraveling at last. He groaned, his head falling back against the bed, and spent himself inside her, cock jerking and jumping.

When his crest receded, he let his arms slip from around her waist, stroking her side and the backs of her arms. He pried his eyes open to regard her, and found her simply looking down at him in return. Colette shifted, lifting herself and letting him slip free with a little sigh; he answered her with a groan of his own.

She reached across his body, groping atop the bed for her rosary, but once she’d wound it around her wrist she laid back down, stretching out beside him and laying her cheek against his shoulder. He smothered his momentary surprise, clearing his throat.

“I said ‘in the morning,’” Colette murmured, her eyes already closed. Her fingers were stroking the coarse hairs that peppered his chest, her legs tangled with his.

He looked down at her, feeling the warmth of her body, the soft rush of her breath, the weight and presence of her; all the palpable reminders she was still alive. Gaius lifted a hand to stroke her hair, gathering it to one side and slipping his hand beneath its silken strands. His hand settled at the nape of her neck, covering that strange tattoo, thumb stroking lightly at her skin. “Of course,” he said, and let her rest.


End file.
